Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

 

Abstract

Purpose: Indigenous people have their faith on traditional living cultures. But in the context of dynamic changed situation and on the perspectives of globalization in the world the concepts of transformation, absorption, integration etc have been coming in the forefront. The merging of Small into the Big is a phenomenon of the society. In this study the social and cultural life along with the demographic situation of the Manipuri peoples (Bishnupriya) have been described. The main purpose of the study is to find out the nature of the absorbing process into the use of major language by the small Bishnupriya Manipuri community people. Moreover, an attempt has been made to identify the role of public libraries in the development and continuation of traditional language spoke by Bishnupriya Manipuri, an indigenous tribal community in Bangladesh.

Scope and Coverage: Identification of the merger of traditional language of Bishnupriya Manipuri into a major language in Bangladesh and to safeguard the traditional indigenous language and culture the role of libraries has been assessed. Bishnupriya Manipuri peoples had concentrated themselves in Sylhet division and in this division the preferred place for living of Manipuri peoples is Adampur union of Kamalganj sub-division.

Methods used: Basically the descriptive method was followed in this study. The geographical area was surveyed along with observation techniques to identify the social and cultural aspects of the Manipuri peoples with special reference to their use of language as a communication medium in the society. To identify the nature of language used by Bishnupriya Manipuri peoples, the rural villages and the local market areas were surveyed during the stay at Kamalganj in Bangladesh in 2019. The public libraries were identified and described to find out their role to develop the own indigenous languages in Bangladesh. Moreover, a number of documents were searched on the issue and after reviewing those published literature an attempt of discussion was made in this study which has been concentrated and focussed.

Findings: As it is found from the survey that Bishnupriya Manipuri people in Bangladesh are habituated with the use of Bengali language, an attempt was made to find out the nature of origin of the language. Hence, from the discussion in the study it is revealed that a number of researches have been made in this regard. It is found that the Bishnupriya Manipuri Language may be either from the offspring of Bengali Language or from the Assamese language or Oriya language or may be regarded as own indigenous tribal language. About the role and functions of Libraries in the indigenous language development, it is seen that there is a need to establish public libraries in the rural areas. As there is no public library in the rural areas where Bishnupriya Manipuri people reside, discussion on the benefits of the public library in the language development process can not be made.

Originality / Value: The article is entirely original in nature. No other research works have been done in this regard so far.

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